Frequently Asked Questions

UBC Mathematics: MathNet FAQ [Remote Email]

Question: How do I read my Email from home or some other location outside our network?
Author: Joseph Tam
Date: 2016-10-22

There are several ways you can get your Email when you are not physically here
to read it.

WebMail

If you are in the hinterlands, with nothing other than a computer
supplied by your host, that computer will most likely be some PC
with a web browser installed. In this case, you can use our webmail
facility by going to our home page

Remote Mail Client

If you have a PC with network access, you can use an Email reader such

MaxOSX Mail

Outlook

PC-Pine

Thunderbird

to connect to our remote mail service and retrieve your Email.

You must configure your Email reader to use one of 2 remote Email protocols:

The IMAP protocol is the preferred choice. IMAP will
do operation on a remote mailbox, rather than trying to download your
INBOX and doing local operations as POP3 would. Our IMAP installation
is also set up to access your personal mailboxes (not just your INBOX
as POP3 does), thus allowing you to access the same mail as you would
with WebMail or pine.

The POP3 protocol is good for downloading mail onto your
computer provided it is the sole computer you use to read mail. If you
read your mail from several location, you ought to configure your mail
reader to leave your mail on the server, or you ought to use IMAP.

Another handicap of POP3 is that it can only access your INBOX and
not your personal mail folders.

Here are the parameters you need to use POP3:

Protocol: POP3

Incoming mail server: pop.math.ubc.ca

Port:

If using STARTTLS: 110

If using SSL: 995

If you use a search engine to search for terms like
the mail client you are using (e.g. "Thunderbird"), the
protocol (e.g. "IMAP"), and a keyword like "setup" or
"configuration" you should be able to find step by
step instructions on where to input the above information.
(Make sure you substitute their values for our's!)

Mail forwarding

You can also forward your Email to a more convenient location. To
do this, read the (what else?!) FAQ item on this: